Page 95 - DLIS405_INFORMATION_STORAGE_AND_RETRIEVAL

Information Storage and Retrieval

Notes Simple Index is also much easier to use because it is designed for single-user scanning environments
instead of large scanning service bureaus. Its unique 1-click interface lets you scan, process barcodes,
OCR, rename files and upload them to a server all in one step or even as an unattended process.
A computer-generated keyword index lists a page number for a key term each time it occurs in the
book. You simply provide Trafford with a list of words that you want to appear in the index. Trafford
will create an index by tagging the selected words during the production process. The resulting
alphabetical list of keywords gives the page numbers for each occurrence of the word.

9.5 Pre-Coordinate Indexing

Since the indexing is coordinating (combining, pulling together concepts) then they engage in an act
of synthesis to build one long index entry.
This can happen in three ways:
• Represent a single subject flowers or flowers and shrubs
• An aspect of a single subject fertilization of flowers, arrangement of flowers
• Two or more subjects treated in relation to one another flowers in art, flowers in religion
folklore, etc.

9.6 Post-coordinated Indexing
Post-coordinated indexing is the opposite of pre-coordinated indexing. There are pros and cons to
each method of indexing.
Terms from the index are combined during the searching, rather than before, to create an index
based on the individual search result. Facets can be combined ad finitum following the standpoint
of the user. The index is created after the information is added to the database. Post-coordinated
indexing will general increase recall but will usually decrease precision.

Post-coordinated indexing is almost always associated with computers, and usually
uses some type of boolean logic and descriptors. Post-coordinated indexing allows
searchers the freedom to freely combine many terms that are relevant to the search.

9.7 Pre or Post-coordinate Indexing

Most people think about what they want to search for and are willing to combine their concepts at the
time of search. They put in the combination of terms they are thinking of; they are doing the
coordination of terms. It is up to the search software to do the intersection of the terms for them and
figure out the post-coordination.
In the current online environment, very seldom do we put together terms in a pre-coordinate fashion.
That is one of the challenges in taking older classified lists – back-of-the-book indexes–and making
them into a post-coordinate system.
Post-coordination of terms is typical of traditional classification systems, and not of most modern
taxonomies and thesauri. Classification systems often concatenate separate concepts into a string of
terms. Natural language is not used.
Most people search by typing in words as they think of them, so we need to support natural language
in our systems. This is part of why Access Innovations uses post-coordination in the taxonomies
and thesauri it creates.

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